According to the prior art, planar structures are constructed for dissipating heat from modules of power electronics, which structures dissipate the heat diffusing from a heat source (active or passive electrical components) via numerous interlayers (solders, conductive pastes, adhesive compounds, metallizations) into an electrically nonconductive, uniformly shaped, simple geometric body (disc, rectangular substrate). Although the geometry of the individual components is simple, the entire layer construction is complicated and requires consecutive application of a very wide variety of processes which are susceptible to faults, such as adhesive bonding, pressing, screwing and also, to a limited extent, soldering. Each interface of this stacked construction represents a barrier for heat transfer and reduces either the reliability and/or the life of the module (oxidation, breakdown, ageing) or limits its performance.
Organic and ceramic circuit carriers (carrier bodies) having low or insufficient thermal conductivity need to be attached in a permanently interlocking manner to a metallic cooling body by additional measures, such as electrically insulating interlayers. As the thermal loads increase, some of the heat sources need to be removed from the printed circuit board and mounted, in the conventional sense, on a metallic cooling body and electrically connected to the circuit carrier.
The construction comprising a plurality of different materials is complex and a compromise in terms of long-term reliability. An increase in the power density is only possible to a small extent.
The thermal conductivity can only be used to a certain extent since a planar-parallel construction is involved.
A direct combination of an electrically conductive cooling body and a heat source is likewise not possible.
In order to simplify the carrier body whilst at the same time providing extremely improved heat dissipation, the invention proposes that the carrier body is provided integrally with heat-dissipating or heat-supplying cooling elements.